‘‘I beg your pardon,’’ said Reckitt, going a bit pinched round the nostrils. ‘‘So far as I know there’s been no question of his being kicked out in disgrace, as you call it. This informal meeting hasn’t authority to do anything at all. It was arranged, largely at Mr. Abercrombie’s request and chiefly——’’
‘‘Yes, I know all that,’’ said Dane. ‘‘But in effect its authority is final enough, just because its findings will never be promulgated and therefore there can never be any appeal against them. If the general opinion of this room is that Branwell has acted badly he’s no choice but to offer his resignation and the Abercrombies have no choice but to accept it.”
In some ways I wished Dane hadn’t spoken for me. In the night I’d had hours to think; and I’d come to this meeting quite decided; but he was such a persuasive beggar that he was making even me see the other side of the picture. In spite of early doubts,’’ I’d enjoyed my job with the Abercrombies. It did suit me, temperamentally. Or it had suited me until the Lowis Manor fire.
Thinking this, I’d lost track of the conversation again. I was suddenly aware that McDonald was speaking. He’d slumped in his chair, and his double chin looked heavy and gross.
‘‘… since my inquiries began it. What Henry Dane has said—and what Branwell said before him—has cleared up a lot of the perplexities in my mind, and I’ve certainly no wish to be vindictive. Obviously there are plenty of people senior to me here, but if it helps any way I’m prepared to say I’m entirely satisfied with what I’ve heard, and I suggest we forget all about this meeting and consider it as never having happened.”
It was very handsome of him. It staggered me a bit, and I think some of the others too. At least nobody spoke for quite a while. Eventually Spenser began to say something, but just at that moment I realized that this was the time I must speak, if I was ever going to speak at all.
‘‘No,’’ I said. ‘‘I’m—very grateful to McDonald for saying that. I’m very grateful indeed.… But it won’t do. Ever since May, since the fire, I’ve been thinking about this; but it’s only recently that it’s come clear in my own mind. And it was really while I was awake last night that I finally saw the thing as it really is. I don’t know whether the rest of you agree with McDonald or not—and perhaps it’s better if I don’t know—but, if you’ll forgive me, I don’t want to leave the decision to you. That’s not egotism or old buck: if I thought I came out of this well … But, whatever Henry Dane says, I don’t come out of it well—at least that’s my opinion, and, ultimately, it’s your opinion of yourself that counts. So I want to resign, to get things straight with myself again.”
Traffic was rumbling outside. Even the Saturday workers were beginning to go.
‘‘When I came out of the army,’’ I said, ‘‘I got a chance to go and settle in New Zealand. It’s an offer that still stands and I … and my wife and I want to accept it. It’ll be a different life from this—perhaps not better. I don’t know, but it’ll be something different and quite new. I think that’ll suit me. I think it’ll suit her. Of course I shouldn’t have thought of making the change if this hadn’t happened, but perhaps in the long run it will be for the best.” I stopped for a minute to find the few remaining words. Spenser was fiddling with his pencil, turning it end to end. The only one who was looking at me was Charles Robinson.
Mr. Abercrombie said: ‘‘The point is, Oliver——’’
‘‘I don’t know what the Abercrombies think about it,’’ I ploughed on, ‘‘except that they’re the people I’ll most regret leaving in this—because they’ve trained me and backed me and I’ve become a part of their firm and a part of their connection; and I shall always be grateful for their—trust and friendship. But so far as I’m concerned myself I don’t feel that anything in these last five years has been wasted. Perhaps some of the stuff I know about insurance won’t be any more use; but all the rest will be good to have wherever I go. Some people end their education fairly early; mine started differently and has gone on late. If this, this Lowis Manor business, means that I go out under a bit of a cloud, it’s a pity. But it isn’t so much of a pity as if I didn’t know when to go.”
Spenser opened his eyes and looked at Reckitt. But Reckitt was staring out of the window. Spenser said: ‘‘Well, I don’t know what the feeling is, but it doesn’t seem to me there’s a lot more we can usefully do this morning. Branwell’s decision is something he must discuss with Mr. Abercrombie. If he’s quite made up his mind to go, as I think he has, well, then it becomes a private matter which is no longer any concern of ours. But even in that case—still more in that case—there’s a great deal to be said for McDonald’s generous suggestion. It seems to me that the purpose of this meeting has been fully achieved—not by forcing Branwell’s resignation, but by healing a quarrel and by eliciting the full facts of the situation. Personally, speaking as an observer in this, I’d like to say that Mr. Branwell’s attitude this morning has left me with the highest opinion of his general integrity, and I’m sure there’s no one here who doesn’t wish him every possible success in the new life he has chosen.”
Well, that was it. I stood on the corner of Lime Street and Leadenhall Street and watched the thinning trickle of traffic. In another hour the City would be dead. As I would soon be dead, so far as the City was concerned.
It was all very well to talk about the new life I had chosen, but in fact I’d talked a lot more surely than I knew. I didn’t know what Sarah would feel about it, because I’d not really seriously discussed it with her. I didn’t even know if Roy Marshall’s offer was still open. Not that I seriously doubted that Sarah would like the idea or that she would be entirely loyal to my decision—I knew that now—but the expenditure of nervous energy this morning, following last night, had left me empty and tired and depressed. I didn’t regret what I’d done; but it suddenly seemed so much less straightforward than it had in Reckitt’s room, and fraught with difficulties and all the trials and errors of a new beginning.
Also, although it had seemed at the time, shaking hands with them all and meeting their eyes, that I’d come out of the business with credit and advantage after all, I knew that in the future the failure would loom large again, that I should always feel I’d left under a cloud. And there would be times when that knowledge wouldn’t be an easy thing to live with.
It was always an unnatural quiet, this, that fell on the City at a week-end; not so much restful as secret, not so much empty as watchful. It didn’t seem very long since all this had been strange to me, foreign territory.
I hadn’t even had the opportunity to say the things I wanted to say to the people who had stood by me. True, I’d seen Michael and his father alone at the end and tried to tell them how I felt, but, as usual, the things I said didn’t sound right to me.
I turned up towards the Bank, where there would be a better chance of a taxi, and someone took my arm. It was Henry Dane.
He said: ‘‘Well, my friend, are you satisfied with the morning’s work?’’
I said grimly: ‘‘Are you?’’
‘‘No. If I knew you were bent on hara-kiri I shouldn’t have wasted my morning’s golf.”
‘‘Or one of your best defence speeches. Sorry.”
‘‘Can I drop you somewhere?’’
‘‘No.” We walked a few paces and then I stopped, determined to say it to him. ‘‘Look, Henry, I want to thank you. I don’t know why the hell you did it. I don’t know why you went to all that trouble and sailed near the wind for the sake of——’’
‘‘My dear fellow——’’
‘‘No,’’ I said, ‘‘there’s no getting out of it. I shall never forget the way you … everything.… But it wasn’t useless because I did have a chance of abandoning ship in good order instead of being torpedoed from all sides.”
‘‘Why abandon ship at all?’’
‘‘I feel it’s right. Or I felt so. Now—just at this moment—I’m not sure of anything at all.”
/> ‘‘The fact of your leaving while this rumour’s still about——’’
‘‘I’m not. I’ve agreed to stay on for a bit—just while things straighten themselves out. I don’t care about the rumour but I do about the Abercrombies, and they put it to me.…”
‘‘I’m glad.”
We walked on in silence to the corner of Gracechurch Street. I said: ‘‘ You think I’m making a mistake, then, in. going to New Zealand.”
‘‘I think you’re making a mistake in not fighting it out here. There are all sorts of obstacles, I know, but none that you can’t surmount. You don’t really solve any difficulty by avoiding it, especially when some of the difficulties are within yourself. England made you, Oliver, and it should take the credit—or the consequences. And so should you. This is where you began; and it’s where you should work out your own solution. Then go, if you want to, but not before. You’ve integrity and courage, and a wife who’s your equal in both. With her to help you, you can still do practically anything. But not if you scuttle now.”
I stared at his lined, vigorous face. ‘‘Scuttle’s not a word I’m very fond of.”
‘‘I didn’t suppose it would be. That’s why I used it.… My car’s down here. I’ll say good-bye.”
We shook hands, and I said: ‘‘ In any case thanks again—for everything—for your help and for your advice. There’s a lot about the police side I’d like you to know. I’ll see you again.” He smiled. ‘‘I think you will. Ask Sarah’s opinion on it all. You
might even go by that.”
‘‘I might even go by that.”
As we crossed the empty street and were about to separate he
said: ‘‘I hope you find her better. Her well-being is all you really
care about, isn’t it?’’
And when I had left him and walked on a bit farther towards
the Bank I knew that what he said was absolutely true.
Copyright
First published in 1969 by Bodley Head
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Fortune Is a Woman Page 25
